Medicine, Morality, and Political Culture: Legislation on Venereal Disease in Five Northern European Countries, c. 1870–c. 1995 by Ida Blom (review)

Has there been a specifically Scandinavian way of dealing with venereal disease (VD)? This is one of the central questions asked by Norwegian historian Ida Blom in her recent monograph, Medicine, Morality, and Political Culture. To answer this question, Blom compares Norway, Denmark, and Sweden during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, contrasting these countries to Germany, the classic example of a conservative or corporative welfare state, and Great Britain, the classic example of a liberal welfare state. Her conclusion is mildly affirmative: the Scandinavian countries shared some important features in their historic battles against VD that also set them somewhat apart from other countries. But there were also important differences.

During the first half of the twentieth century, all three Scandinavian countries agreed on national legislation including free but compulsory treatment of VD, mandatory notification of sources of infection, police assistance in tracing carriers, and imprisonment for deliberately infecting others. However, the timing varied greatly between the countries. While Danish and Swedish VD laws were introduced in 1906 and 1918, respectively, Norway did not get a national law on VD until 1947 (the same year that the Danish law was revised to include mandatory tracing and notification of sexual contacts). To a large extent, Blom explains these differences by rooting them in distinctive political cultures. The Danes were often slightly ahead of the others in social reform, while Norway—partly due to religious reasons—was generally the most conservative country (although, Blom points out, some Norwegian towns introduced politically progressive local by-laws dealing with VD several decades before the national laws in Denmark and Sweden).

In addition to her transnational comparisons, Blom attempts a more general analysis of the interplay between medicine, morality, and political culture in the processes of legislation on VD. Pharmaceutical advances, which made it possible to actually cure VD, played an important role here. Also, Blom argues that in the course of the twentieth century, in the context of the growing welfare states, a highly gendered morality of sexuality—expressed in actions to control “loose” women as sources of infection—was gradually replaced by a morality of citizenship, based on the fundamental principle that all citizens should have the same duties and the same rights. This shift had considerable impact on legislation.

But Blom also illustrates how changes in legislation can mask continuity in practice. In the case of VD, the new legislation in Scandinavia was gender-neutral. It was also coupled to the abolishment of the systems of regulated prostitution, which had sought to combat the spread of syphilis while preserving an alleged “necessary” outlet for male sexuality since the mid-nineteenth century. But although references to prostitution were removed from the VD laws, prostitutes continued to be targeted by other laws, such as those on vagrancy. Thus, controlling the sexuality of women remained a centerpiece in the fight against VD for the greater part of the twentieth century. In practice, the category of suspect women was actually expanded, from prostitutes to the wide range of “new” women frequenting dance halls and restaurants.

Also, in all the five countries, women were singled out as the sources and transmitters of infection. When men or groups of men—such as sailors or soldiers—were singled out, it was as possible victims, and hardly ever as carriers. Even in the political discourse on the nuclear family, that hallowed institution whose protection motivated the legislation in the first place, the focus was on wives infecting husbands rather than the other way around.

Blom argues that after World War II, the Scandinavian countries moved from contain-and-control strategies to more liberal ways of dealing with VD, more in line with the British policy that concentrated on information and free treatment and sought to avoid coercion. So did...